


Without Words

by literati42



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Malcolm Bright Gets a Hug, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, sweet baby Malcolm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22725013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literati42/pseuds/literati42
Summary: Jackie and Gil learn to read between the lines with Malcolm as he's growing up because the most important things go unsaid.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 117
Collections: Literati42 Commissions Trades Requests





	Without Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cornerofmadness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/gifts).



> Happy Valentines Day! I hope everyone enjoys delightful shippy stories (I know I will!) But here to remind you to celebrate all kinds of love, including found family love, here is this story!
> 
> Also! If you like my stories, please check out this post on my blog about the current things I'm working on fandom-wise and how you can get involved:  
> https://existentialwednesdays.wordpress.com/2020/02/06/want-to-know-more-about-me-as-a-fanfic-writer/  
> This post is always where you can find me on the various social medias
> 
> This story was by request from CornerofMadness

From the moment Malcolm Whitly entered their lives, Jackie knew she would come to love him. He was small, silent, with the round face of youth. His eyes, however, carried profound pain. Jackie stepped forward, her hand stretched out to welcome him into her home for the first time. At that moment, it was only a hint in her mind, a flash of a warning. How dangerous it is, she thought, to feel such parental love toward someone else’s child. But little by little, his place in their lives solidified. Malcolm was a staple of the Arroyo home, even if he did not live there. As he grew older, he was around more, not less as she feared. So, little by little, Jackie stopped worrying about loving him and losing him. She let go and loved him completely.

She slowly learned to read Malcolm’s unspoken words.

In the beginning, he did not speak at all. The trauma sealed his words inside, and so everything she learned about him was unsaid. Then over time, he started speaking again. His early words were quiet, and then all of a sudden, the silent boy turned into a rattling, ball of energy. He talked so much, so fast, but the Arroyos loved every word. After the silence, even the rambling was precious.

He talked so much that it was easy to miss the fact that the most important things to him, he expressed silently.

“It must be hard,” Jackie said, meeting Gil’s eyes in the mirror of her vanity, a wedding gift from her grandmother, one night as she got ready for bed. “Having a father that for so many years modeled what looked like positive emotional expression only to learn it was fake.” She spun around in the chair to face him straight on. “From what Jessica says, Martin,” she said his first name because she never called that man ‘Malcolm’s father’ and she refused to glorify him with the media’s name ‘the Surgeon,’ “was incredibly expressive. He talked about how much he loved his family all the time.”

“He knew how to create good fiction.”

“Exactly,” Jackie agreed. “So, it makes sense. Malcolm doesn’t trust words anymore.”

Gil nodded, considering it all. “Are you suggesting we don’t say anything anymore?”

“No, not at all,” she replied. “We should always say it, whether he responds or not. But we back it up. We tell him he is loved, and then we show him what real love looks like.” She took Gil’s hand. “Put your money where your mouth is, Arroyo.”

He laughed, “My money where my mouth is, huh?” he wrapped his arms around her shoulder, cradling her in his arms.

“Your emotional currency,” she said, smacking his arm with playful frustration.

So, they did, and little by little, Jackie began to see the ways Malcolm said, “I love you” back, even if it was rarely spoken out loud.

_-_-_

Jackie heard the muffled voices of Malcolm, age thirteen, and her husband coming from down the hall as she arrived home one afternoon. She traced the sound until she found them in front of her mirror. “First over, then through” Gil was saying, narrating his movements as he tied his tie. Malcolm followed, watching his hands and mimicking. “Good.” Gil squeezed the back of his neck with a bright smile.

Jackie paused, leaning on the doorway and watching her boys.

Later, when she and Gil dropped Malcolm off, she said something in passing to Jessica about how cute it was to watch Gil teach Malcolm this skill. The woman raised her elegant eyebrow.

“Malcolm?” she repeated, “Jackie, he’s a Milton. He’s known how to tie a tie since he was five.” She gave Jackie a meaningful look and then turned her gaze to where Gil was talking to Malcolm, both of them laughing over some shared joke. Jackie paused. Her mind went over how well Malcolm faked his ignorance earlier, how grateful he seemed.

He did it for Gil.

_-_-_

Jackie taught Gil to read between the lines too, to see the ways Malcolm spoke without speaking even when he said a lot. The important things were always the silent ones, the implied ones, the quiet glances. Malcolm’s silence always meant more than his words.

Jackie opened her eyes to the hospital room and a seventeen-year-old Malcolm standing in the doorway. He was getting thinner without getting taller, and he looked so pale it almost seemed like he should be the one in the hospital. He said nothing, just met her eyes, his bright blue ones soft and worried. They both glanced at Gil, asleep slumped in the chair beside her. Malcolm grabbed a blanket from the couch and wrapped it around the man’s shoulder. Then he came to the other side of the bed and took Jackie’s hand.

He said nothing.

He said everything.

When Gil woke up, the three of them talked. They talked about Malcolm’s applications to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (accepted by all of them, of course), and which college had the best criminal psychology program. They talked about how his mother still did not know he wanted to go into criminal psychology. She still believed he applied for accounting. Then the conversation turned to how Malcolm still did not want to learn how to drive.

“Are you going to take Adolpho to college with you?” Gil teased him. 

Malcolm glared at him, but there was no heat in it.

Jackie’s boys talked a great deal. No one said anything about cancer. Malcolm said a great deal of words about a great many things, but Jackie could still make out the actual message hidden between them: I am here for you no matter what, I will be here for Gil no matter what, I love you. She did not need to hear it out loud to know what Malcolm was saying, and when she met Gil’s eyes, she knew he heard it too.

_-_-_

“The doctor says it's in full remission.” As soon as the words left her lips, Malcolm fell into her arms and held on. His relief finally released the wave of emotions buried in him. She stroked his hair gently. “Oh, Malcolm.” She kissed his hair, “I love you.” He never said he was worried, but then he definitely did not need to say that one.

A few weeks ago while they waited on the results, Jessica told Jackie in exasperation about a fight with Malcolm.

“He wants to take a gap year!” she shrieked to the other woman, waving her hand. “And I thought, wonderful! Finally, something normal. But did my Malcolm want to go to Europe like a normal teenager?”

“A normal incredibly wealthy teenager,” Jackie added, but the words floated right past Jessica just like everything else she did not want to pay attention to.

“No! He wants to stay here.” She shook her head, “Here? Why? He doesn’t have any friends. He doesn’t have a girlfriend…” she said, then added, “Or boyfriend. No. What in Heaven or Earth is keeping him here?”

I am, Jackie thought, but she merely gave a sympathetic nod to Jessica. Malcolm did not want to leave her and Gil while she was getting treatments.

Now, several weeks and an incredible conversation with a doctor later, she held the teenager in her arms. “You better accept those university offers now,” she said, her eyebrows arcing pointedly. He almost looked guilty, caught, but she smiled. “Gil and I will be fine. So you better go get that degree Malcolm, because I want to be in the auditorium when you walk across the stage.” He gave her one nod, his voice seeming to fail him, and hugged her again.

He did not need to talk, she knew what he was saying anyway.


End file.
